Hire Car Insurance - Avis booked though Qantas SFO to LAS

[Flying Sailor]

Hi,

We booked an Avis hire car in the USA via Qantas when we made our flight bookings. I would like some advice regarding the insurance. I am pretty sure we have all the coverage we require and want to be sure to avoid up-sell at pickup. The hire is for a convertible, for 8 days, one way SFO to LAS in early October.

We have AIG Platinum (F12) travel insurance. Not cheap, but we have a lot of prepaid bookings and they seem to have the highest cover for cancellations and trip resumption. (how tedious are PDS to read... must have read six while doing the research)

Our Avis booking includes:

Surcharges & Fees / Taxes

Surcharges

Taxes

[TD="colspan: 3"]

Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) [TD="align: right"] INCLUDED

Additional Liability Insurance (ALI)

[TD="align: right"] INCLUDED [/TD]

[/TD]

[/TD]

[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]

[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"] 109.00 [/TD]

[TD="colspan: 2"]

One Way Fees [TD="align: right"]100.00

[/TD]

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[TD="colspan: 2"]

[TD="width: 190"] Tax [/TD]
[TD="align: right"] 9.00
[/TD]

[/TD]

The travel insurance includes cover for car hire excess but we need to have comprehensive insurance through the hire car company. I believe the comprehensive cover is the LDW. Is this correct?. Any thing else we need to be aware of?

For an 8 day hire is it cheaper to buy a GPS? I have driven in the US before and would not drive without one.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[AdMEL]

I believe you have the cover you need.

LDW covers loss or damage to the rental car

ALI covers third party legal liability for injury to people and damage to other vehicles and property. From memory the amount of cover is $1m.

You might want to contact Avis to confirm the amount of ALI cover and also that uninsured motorist protection on theft cover are included. Pretty sure they are.

Basically, LDW and ALI together are comprehensive insurance.

Your travel insurance excess cover is of no use, as there will not be an excess.

Using GPS on your smart phone would be the cheapest.

EDIT: Just checked Avis website and LDW includes theft. ALI cover is either $1 or 2m depending on location.

You have all the cover you need.

 

[serfty]

"Car Rental Excess cover" for most Oz based insurances does not provide any cover for US hires.

I know you post it as being tedious, but reading and be sure you understand the individual rental contract and your insurance PDS is essential.

Without knowing seeing them it hard to make a definitive assertion here. Have a look at other threads in this forum are for more some examples.

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Seems strange a one-way rental fee is being charged for a CA-NV booking - there is generally none for such.

E.g. Here's the Details of a £231 (~$410) Netflights[SUB].[/SUB]com 8 day fully including convertible rental:

NetFlights - Car Hire Conditions

With one of these, vehicle rental related insurances such as LDW etc. are no longer an issue (still need normal TI of course).

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